Disclaimer: I love dogs, pygmy goats, rabbits and horses, all creatures great and small. But I am decidedly and devotedly a cat person. Ask my family: I have yet to meet a cat I didn’t like. Short or long-haired, Siamese, Persian or Maine Coon, I love them all.

Two weeks ago, one of my outside cats (you know you’re a cat lover when you have inside AND outside cats!) had kittens. When I awakened that morning to find her in labor, I sat in the early morning chill, holding my breath and whispering push–push now as she gave birth to five kittens during the course of the morning. Cats are birthing machines, and I reveled in the relative ease and efficiency with which she birthed and after-birthed. What a woman, I thought as she nestled all five into her for their first feeding.

English Romantic poet Robert Southey wrote: A kitten is, in the animal world, what a rosebud is in the garden. Sitting on the floor of my screened-in porch, I was smitten with the five little rosebuds in front of me. I couldn’t wait to tell my granddaughter and grandson that we finally had kittens, for they had been coming over daily to check to see if there were babies yet. As the rosebuds wiggled and rolled into one compact gray and white mass, I couldn’t help but think What a great day this is!

Japanese haiku writer Kobayashi Issa is a cat lover after my own heart:

Arise from sleep, old cat,
And with great yawns and stretchings…
Amble out for love

This is one of the greatest things about cats: they amble out for love. No over-eager licking or jumping up or general pushiness for cats. They are amblers whose love is manifested in curling up and purring and general hanging out. And I like that very much.

British veterinarian and author James Herriot claims that cats are the connoisseurs of comfort. On a rainy day or a cold winter night, there is nothing like the sweet weight and warmth of a cat stretched out on your chest as you read or nap. This is comfort to rival the finest spa experience. Add a generous dose of purring, and this is heaven-come-to-earth.

As one who often turns off the radio as I drive, I value the quiet space in which I can think and dream. Cats afford a rare companionship in solitude. Mark Twain wrote that if animals could speak, the dog would be a blundering outspoken fellow; but the cat would have the rare grace of never saying a word too much. This rare grace of never saying a word too much is an attribute I admire, one to which most humans might aspire.

In the weeks to come, my grandchildren and I will set about naming the kittens. Just as naming my children was serious business, so, too, is naming my cats. As the kittens’ personalities emerge, we will try out names in pursuit of the best extension and reflection of each cat. One day’s name may be discarded in favor of a new, and hopefully more suitable, name the next day. Some kittens may receive people names, while others do not. Serious as this naming business is, it is not a science so much as a labor of love. I currently have a Pierre and a Phil, the fanciful French cat and the redneck Iowa cat. A wild stray who took me weeks to tame, a peanut of a cat, finally earned the name Birdie when it was clear that she would remain forever petite, eating more like a bird than a feline. Over the course of decades, I have had a Scamper and a Puff–regular cat names–as well as a Jade and a Darth–not-so-regular cat names. Poet T. S. Eliot understood the difficulty of finding just the right cat name:

The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter,
It isn’t just one of your holiday games;

            .   .    .

When you notice a cat in profound meditation,
The reason, I tell you, is always the same:
His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name:
His ineffable effable
Effanineffable
Deep and inscrutable singular Name.

[Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats]

A name that both cannot be uttered, cannot be described in words AND one that can. This is the paradoxical task of naming cats, and I tell you,  it is not just one of your holiday games. After all, the kitten with the face that looks oddly like a monkey (according to my granddaughter) cannot continue to be called Monkey Boy. There is a dignity in this naming process, and both she and I understand that he deserves much better.

Each morning before I make coffee, I walk to the sliding door onto my screened-in porch to check on the five rosebuds. Often, they are contently gathered into their mother, one furry ball of sleep. Other times, they are trying on their new legs, wobbling to the edge of the cat bed, desperately focusing their new eyes on the shadow and shape that is their mother. Knowing that I can open the door, scoop them up, and take in the wonder of kittens? This is one of the best ways to start (and end) each day.

We have a dog, two bunnies, chickens, a fish, two adopted ducks at the pond, and cats. If it were up to me, we would have more of everything. Still, there is–and will always be–a special place in my heart and my home for cats. Though I haven’t yet told my husband, we will have kittens again in a couple weeks. Birdie-the-petite is not so petite these days. And this is great news for a cat lover like me who understands that the rosebuds will have cousins to play with this summer. What could be more glorious than a cozy clutch of kittens and their mothers who devotedly amble out for love?

It was the last day of school before Christmas vacation, and the afternoon dragged on as I watched the snow blanket the playground. As a fifth grader, I was counting the minutes until we were loosed from school and could begin the official countdown until Christmas.

At the final bell, my sisters and I bundled up for the five-minute walk home. By the time we reached the back door, snowflakes clung to our our eyelashes, and our mittens were damp. My mom was waiting for us in the kitchen as we unbuttoned, unbooted, shaking wet snow from our coats. I know it isn’t Christmas yet, but I have an early present for you girls. Come with me. 

We followed my mom into her sewing room and there it was in the corner: a two-story Barbie house that my mom had lovingly crafted from cardboard boxes and furnished with velvet-covered tin-can chairs, cereal box bed, and real curtains. It was magnificent! Speechless, we gathered around the house to take in every room and accessory.

For as long as I can remember, my mom has worked miracles on a limited budget. Barbie houses, prom dresses, bedroom makeovers came to life through my mom’s vision and skills. She learned to upholster and to refinish furniture, to decorate our home for every holiday with pieces she made in ceramics and to make sure that we had special clothes for special occasions. From my mom, I learned to shop at garage sales and thrift shops before this became fashionable. Under her tutelage, I learned what I would need to know when, years later, I would attempt to work miracles on a limited budget for my own family,

More than things, however, my mom created events. Friday nights were hamburgers and chips on TV trays and one glorious hour of Lost in Space. Sunday afternoons might find us driving country roads, scavenging old door knobs from abandoned farm houses and searching the ditches for milkweed pods and cattails. And then there were the old-shirt-it’s-time days. When my dad’s shirts became worn enough that my mom was never going to let my dad be seen wearing them in public, she gave us the go-ahead to literally rip the shirt off my dad’s body. As he feigned surprise and gave half-hearted attempts to evade us, we ran and ripped, ripped and ran. Until ribbons of plaid sport shirt hung from my dad’s shoulders. Until, squealed out, we lay breathless in the grass clutching fistfuls of fabric as trophies.

And on 4th of July? She created THE event of the summer. With coolers of eggs, bacon, and juice and boxes of donuts, we made the annual trip to Ft. Kearney Recreation Area for breakfast on the beach and swimming after. As years went by, neighbors, college friends, and assorted other guests attended the annual event. Eggs never tasted so good as they did on these mornings. Our fingers sticky from glazed donuts and sunscreen, we washed them in the swimming area and stretched out on our towels in the mid-morning sun. As kids, we never gave a second thought to the fact that as we were sunbathing, swimming and making sandcastles, my mom was cleaning the skillets, cleaning up the picnic site, and packing the remaining food in our coolers. We never once considered the planning, the packing, the preparing that made our 4th of July at Ft. Kearney a splendid reality, year after year. We had a mom who would put most event planners to shame.

Best of all, though, my mom created sanctuaries. In my sleepless hours of adolescence, my mom’s constant presence and assurance became a sanctuary I retreated to night after night.  I love the photo above because years before she would accompany me to high school track meets, it reveals the mom who would brave wind and sleet to sit for hours in the bleachers as one of very few spectators. In this photo, she wears a hooded coat at a college football game, but during track season, she wore a black garbage bag over her coat to protect herself and the entire team’s stash of snacks. When races did not go well, when you needed warm hands to rub out the cold, my mom was a sanctuary of comfort. As I grew and moved to different cities and states, I depended upon the sanctuary of my mom’s voice over the phone lines that spanned the miles between my mom and me. Even now in the moments before I sleep, it is this voice that sends me into the sanctuary of dream.

In the Sanctuary of my Mom, you will never go without. Before you realize you need something–a word of affirmation or guidance, a new coat or set of dishes–she has anticipated just what you need and presents it as if it is no big deal. I have lived a life of plenty, for I have never gone without my mom’s unfailing love and support. And this a a very big deal, indeed.

I have always wanted to grow up to be just like my mom. For my entire life, I have watched my mom advocate for those in need of help, befriend those who need a genuine friend, and open her house to countless visitors who need a place to stay. Gathered around my family dining room table, I am certain that these individuals can’t imagine a place they’d rather be. Truthfully, I can’t imagine a place I’d rather be than seated at this table with a great piece of pie and the promise of hours of conversation with my mom.

My siblings and I are remarkably blessed to live in the sanctuary of such a mother. In this sanctuary, I propose that every day should be Mother’s Day. Not the Hallmark, FTD kind of Mother’s Day, but the real deal complete with phone calling, letter writing, and visiting. Sentimental verse and flowers are sweet, but our own words and presence are so much sweeter. How do I know this? I learned this–and so much more–from my mother.

Happy Mother’s Day, Mom–today and always.

photo by Collyn Ware

“The morning air was like a new dress. That made her feel the apron tied around her waist. She untied it and flung it on a low bush beside the road and walked on, picking flowers and making a bouquet… From now on until death she was going to have flower dust and springtime sprinkled over everything.”

Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God

If I could leap into the spring air, flinging my back leg so joyously that my heel catches my wind-worthy hair, throwing my arms back with abandon, I would do it. Today, everything is like a new dress. Today is a day for flinging off aprons and malaise, for ordering up some flower dust and springtime sprinkled over everything. 

May is a flinging and sprinkling time, the finally-spring days between winter and summer. There are tadpoles in the pond, rose-breasted grosbeaks have returned, and peonies are full-to-bursting. Anything and everything seems possible.

When the morning air was like a new dress, Zora Neale Hurston’s Janie awakens to possibilities that previously only danced around the edges of her life. The circumstances for a poor, young black Southern woman had not changed. But Janie sees beyond these circumstances, beyond a life of servitude to others, to the men who would be her husbands, to heartache and striving. She flings her apron and calls upon love.

In this season of uncertainty where dark circumstances roll in around us, pressing their thunderous weight upon us, we would do well to follow Janie’s lead. As the nuclear testing continues, as oppressors persist in oppressing, as factions banter and fight, we might as well just fling off our aprons. If only for a day, a glorious May day. Or perhaps if only for a moment of pure, unadulterated springtime sprinkling. We were made for this, and lest we forget the beauty of flower dust and new dresses, we should go about leaping, gaining whatever height we can.

Pablo Neruda claimed that You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep Spring from coming. Daily, there are those who are bent on cutting the flowers, plucking their blossoms and shearing their stems to the ground. These are the hell-in-a-hand-basket folks. While the child down the lane loads her basket to the brim with violets, they persist in dragging their brittle baskets of solemnity and fear. They will not see that you cannot keep Spring from coming. Worse yet, when it comes, they will miss it all.

And there is so, so much to miss! In My Antonia, Willa Cather writes:

After that hard winter, one could not get enough of the nimble air. Every morning I wakened with a fresh consciousness that winter was over. There were none of the signs of spring for which I used to watch in Virginia, no budding woods or blooming gardens. There was only—spring itself; the throb of it, the light restlessness, the vital essence of it everywhere: in the sky, in the swift clouds, in the pale sunshine, and in the warm, high wind—rising suddenly, sinking suddenly, impulsive and playful like a big puppy that pawed you and then lay down to be petted. If I had been tossed down blindfold on that red prairie, I should have known that it was spring.

Cather understands that spring lives without budding woods or blooming gardens. There was only–spring itself. . . the vital essence of it everywhere. Even on the red prairie, blindfolded, she is certain that she would revel in the nimble air and know that it was spring. Reveling, flinging, sprinkling–it’s all good. Even the oldest, most stoved-up of us feels nimble enough in spring.

Nimble enough to kneel on the ground, trowel in hand, flats of petunias and impatiens and geraniums before us. Our fingers tremble at the sight of spring soil, and as Margaret Atwood writes, In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt. 

In Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie Mae Crawford’s first two marriages–one arranged, one chosen–had left her springless, suffocating, and stifled. After two decades, she awakens, flings off her aproned life, and runs to Florida with Teacake, a younger man who, she believes, offers her a final flinging of the weight and loss of her previous life. Hope and love spring eternal. She leaps into new possibilities with the confidence and certainty of one who still believes in flower dust. 

In a Season of Flinging and Sprinkling, our former hopes and plans may still be springless, the dried and withered essence of buds-never-bloomed. Such is life. But if we refuse to loosen our apron strings, we refuse a season of new germination. Japanese haiku writer, Matsuo Bashō writes:

Dead my old fine hopes
And dry my dreaming but still…
Iris, blue each spring

Like many, I have to remind myself, daily, that there will be Iris, blue each spring. I have to rise with expectation and plans for flinging. I pray to see my day through flower dust and with springtime sprinkled over everything. This seems like such easy, joyous work. And some days it is; other days, it is simply work. It is easier to cling than fling. Cling to impending gloom, listen to the voices of darkness and fear, double-knot my apron strings. These are days of doubting and dreading, followed by nights of dreamless sleep.

Still, dry dreams and dry bones can come to life in the Season of Flinging and Sprinkling. This, I will stake my apron on. And tonight, I will enter my home smelling of dirt and flower dust.

One of my “farm” cats is very pregnant, due to give birth any day now. Gracyn, Griffin, and I are waiting with baited breath. Last week, Griffin told me that he knew how baby kittens are born. This took me back to a similar conversation with my oldest daughter, Megan, when I was weeks away from giving birth to her sister, Collyn.

I know how this baby is going to get out of your tummy, Mom. You do? I asked. I know about that little hole. I had learned by this point in my parenting life to suspend judgment, indignation, and/or shock. So I held my breath and waited. Yup, I know about that hole in your tummy where the baby comes out. The little hole is my belly button? (This was going better than I’d hoped.) Yup, your belly button. I nodded knowingly, and she continued with newfound confidence. When the time comes, you will put on the magic birth belt, your belly button will get really, REALLY big–big enough for the baby to get out– the baby will plop out, and then you will take off the magic belt so your belly button will shrink back down to normal. That’s how it happens. 

Later when I was recalling the conversation to Paul, he asked how I responded to the entire story. I told him that I smiled and said, “That’s right!” At age 4, the mystery of childbirth was better founded in stories of magic birthing belts and expanding belly buttons. For mystery–any mystery–would be tragically fleeting when the ordinary ways of the world with all their common sense and biology and certitude crowded in with adult bluster.

Holocaust survivor and author, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, understood this all too well:

“The lack of mystery in our modern life is our downfall and our poverty. A human life is worth as much as the respect it holds for the mystery. We retain the child in us to the extent that we honor the mystery. Therefore, children have open, wide-awake eyes, because they know that they are surrounded by the mystery. They are not yet finished with this world; they still don’t know how to struggle along and avoid the mystery, as we do. We destroy the mystery because we sense that here we reach the boundary of our being, because we want to be lord over everything and have it at our disposal, and that’s just what we cannot do with the mystery…. Living without mystery means knowing nothing of the mystery of our own life, nothing of the mystery of another person, nothing of the mystery of the world; it means passing over our own hidden qualities and those of others and the world. It means remaining on the surface, taking the world seriously only to the extent that it can be calculated and exploited, and not going beyond the world of calculation and exploitation. Living without mystery means not seeing the crucial processes of life at all and even denying them.” [from God is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas]

Oh to have open, wide-awake eyes, to be surrounded by and immersed in mystery, to live as a child who is not yet finished with this world, and to try your hand at stories and explanations that make your world an even more wonderful place. In the Sanctuary of Mystery, the world is not yet finished, and possibilities, like many-colored balloons, float above and around you by the millions. All you have to do is grab the strings of the ones you particularly like, pull them close to you, and experience the wonder. Looking, feeling, tasting, and smelling deeply, you know that this other-worldly experience cannot be tamed or named; here are mysteries that defy these worldly attempts, and when you are reduced to single words–unbelievable, unreal–no one thinks less of you. The Sanctuary of Mystery forgives the inarticulate and applauds the expressive. Truthfully, no words are preferable. Mysteries invite participants to stand silently in sore amazement.

Bonhoeffer claims that as adults, we may destroy mystery because we sense that here we reach the boundary of our being, because we want to be lord over everything and have it at our disposal. Children are the teachers, the mentors and guides in the Sanctuary of Mystery. In the photo above, my son, Quinn stands, shoes in hand, with his good friend, John. Their friendship is, indeed, a mystery. Neither boy sees any boundary in their being–no black or white, no age, no IQ. Reading at age 3 (chapter books at age 5), John could have used his intellect to be lord over everything in their friendship. And if John had any sense of his potential power as a white male, he might have used this as well. Boundariless, both boys basked in the mystery of a friendship that took them to places that John had read about, and Quinn gratefully imagined through John’s retelling. His mother and I found them one Sunday during church fellowship time, escaped from the adult coffee-drinkers and lost in a serious reenactment of the Lusitania on the church balcony. Just as they were about to abandon the sinking ship, their little legs draped over the edge of the balcony, we intervened. Would they have jumped the 25 feet to the sanctuary floor below? Lost in the mystery of another time and place, the boundary between the real and the imagined stretched and blurred, I still believe that they might have. Time and again, John and Quinn honored the mystery that others, who would choose instead to live on the surface, who would take the world seriously only to the extent that it can be calculated and exploited, would forsake.

Each spring when my hosta sprouts break earth sending green spires skyward, I revel in the mystery. How can the soon-to-be thin, broad leaves wrap themselves so tightly, so perfectly and powerfully into needle-like points that break through the dense clay of southeast Iowa? And how do they know when the time is just right to emerge from the caves of winter to the fragrant expanse of spring? And why are such green wonders perennial, coming back to life again and again and again? There is only one true way to regard a hosta: as a child, in wonder.

Living without mystery means knowing nothing of the mystery of our own life, nothing of the mystery of another person, nothing of the mystery of the world; it means passing over our own hidden qualities and those of others and the world. As adults, we often let others name our qualities and define our world. Having removed the mystery from all of it, the namers and explainers work with dogged conviction, heads down, noses to the grindstone. They wouldn’t and couldn’t see mystery if it hit them right between the eyes. With their data and research reports and pie charts, they show us who we are. Your IQ test reveals, your aptitude inventory indicates, your leadership survey explains that. . . These namers and explainers begin their work with adolescents, testing them and showing them their prescribed paths forward. With certainty and zeal, they believe they are doing the work that needs to be done. You don’t even know what a community planner is or does? Not to worry, your counselor will schedule you into the right courses to pursue this career and advise the right university programs. But you always wanted to work in construction trades? Well, as a community planner, you will have lots of opportunities to consult with those in construction. 

When a person is called to a vocation, when a person uncovers a hidden quality or desire, when a person leaves a career after decades of service, moving towards a destination and position not yet identified, there is mystery. These decisions and acts defy rational, practical explanation. They defy worldly expectations. They fly in the face of calculations and prescriptions. While there are some who stand in sore amazement at such acts, there are more who cover their children’s eyes, clap their hands over their ears, and run away. Lest such inexplicable foolishness rub off on their offspring and lead them beyond the surface of the safe to mysteries unknown.

Years ago, a biology colleague held me captive for several hours in my office (he was sent by his department to school me) as he explained the scientific particulars of evolutionary biology. I listened, nodded to show agreement with those explanations and details with which I could agree, but asked the same question whenever he took a breath deep enough for me to get a word in: Can you explain First Cause to me? There was nothing, and then there was matter. What caused the matter to be? The first two or three times I asked this question, he reentered his dialogue as if I hadn’t spoken at all. Finally, as the supper hour had come and gone, I tried one final time. This time, he sighed, looked at me as a master looks upon an initiate and said: You just don’t understand. We don’t start there. I smiled, packed my computer and school work into my bag, grabbed my coat and thanked him for his time. He was glowing, puffed up with the victorious certainty of a job well done, convinced–I’m sure–that he had successfully initiated me into the fellowship of believers.

We don’t start there. How well I understood that they did not start there in the mystery of creation at the hands of an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent God. Of course not. Starting there would push the boundary of his scientific explanation. Starting there would–for the willing–force one to struggle along and confront the mystery. Starting there would provoke genuine awe and wonder that would dwarf the explanations and the accepted claims of his scientific faith. That would be life-changing at best, and life-shattering at worst. Mystery has that power, and those who accept this gratefully succumb to it. They understand that mystery and science/reason do not have to be mutually exclusive.

Like Bonhoeffer, I believe that living outside of the Sanctuary of Mystery is our downfall and our poverty. The good news? Mystery invites all to its banquet of wonders. Come as a child with open, wide-awake eyes. Come often and stay long. Bask in the fellowship of those who are not yet finished with this world. And be prepared to entertain all that you experience with sore amazement.